Paying off my credit card quicker

marble

Hi,
I'm in a bit of a situation with my credit card. I'm finally getting a handle on my finances and have been looking at ways to pay off debt quicker. I've been making minimum payments each month of my credit card but I've paid out lots of money and not cleared any. What I thought was an APR of 17% turns out to be closer to 30% (I assume they wrote to me ... but it was probably at a time when I was 'ignoring' things).

Anyway, I'm looking to take a loan out to pay off the credit card. I can get a loan at about 13% APR over 3 years to pay off the £3600 on the credit card (paying £105 a month).

However, I finally pay off another loan in September and should then be able to pay off more like £220 a month towards the new 'credit card' loan.

If I take out a loan now (paying £105), I pay a total of £4443 over 42 months. If I take out a loan in September, I pay a total of £3958 over 1.5 years. The interest on my credit card is costing £83 a month .

It seems better to me to take the loan out now stop paying the 30% APR rather than waiting. The downside is, I'll be paying back the loan for 3.5 years ... if I wait I can get it cleared in 18. Still, I'll have £115 less a month for other stuff if I wait.

Can anyone give me some advice on what they'd do (without being too critical of my past financial mismanagement!). Ideally, I would like to find a loan where I can start at the lower repayment rate and then pay more come September (and obviously cut the interest I'd be paying). Is this possible? Do most loan work like this?

I'm a bit lost ...

Al

Keeping_Positive

Hi

First ring your card and say your looking to move because of the high interest, can they lower yours? Always worth a try. Even if still high it will save money until you transfer anyway.

For the loan as long as you dont do what I and many people have done in the past and build up credit card bills again. It looks like waiting for Sept would be cheaper. There are laons that let you over pay.

4443-3958=485 4585/83=5.8 months. May to Sept = 5 months

Have you worked out your SOA (Income and Expenses) to make sure you can easily afford the loan?

Also look at the Whats the cost calculator (google it).

Good luck

System

what about doing a bt to a 0% card .